Lessons Learned
by taylortot
Summary: An AU where Mirai is the kind of popular girl in leather jackets and Akihito is the same nerd in his sweaters and button ups.


A/N: i don't own knk! Let me know what you think!

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Lessons Learned

The boys in class called him lucky, but Akihito isn't so sure about that. What's so lucky about being stuck with a pink-haired pain in the ass? Mirai Kuriyama may be one of the more attractive girls in his class, but she's also the least gentle. At least, toward him, she is. Subtlety is not a part of her vocabulary.

Of course, Akihito knows more about her than anyone else, and he can't bring himself to determine that as a necessarily bad thing. She may be a pain in the ass, but she's smart, resourceful, and focused. Kuriyama only transferred into the school a few months ago, but he feels like he's known her for years.

Which is why, as the top scorer on the last test, Akihito has been paired up with Kuriyama for studying purposes for the exams next week.

His curiosity about her peaked the night before, when he came to her apartment to drop off one of her text books that she left in their clubroom. It had come as a shock when she opened the door - expecting some kind of take out delivery by her shouts - and she stood there in a pair of glasses. Red frames. Perched upon her nose splendidly.

"Kanbara?" she asked in bewilderment.

"You wear glasses?" he said, because it was the only thing that came to mind, even though he was holding her text book firmly in both hands. "Why don't you wear them to school?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why are you here?"

He seemed to remember himself. "O-oh, right. Uh, you f-forgot your book. In the club room. So. . . ."

She eyed him warily as she took the book from his hands. "Thanks, but I didn't really need it." He'd even gone through the trouble of asking Mitsuki where Kuriyama lived in order to bring the dumb book to her.

"Oh," he said, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck.

"Look, I'm kinda busy," she told him.

"Right! Uh, I'll go. But, um, you should wear your glasses to school. You. . .You look really good in glasses."

"Right," she snorts, and then shuts the door in his face. He turns to walk away, not knowing that behind the closed door, she's got her back pressed up against the wood, the blush glowing hot on her cheeks as she slides down to sit on the floor. That nerd wasn't supposed to make her knees so weak.

And so, today in the school hallway after club activities, he feels a sort of nervousness as Kuriyama's figure appears in his peripheral vision. He was curious about her before he knew she wore glasses. Now, he is nearly vibrating with his curiosity.

"Hey Kanbara," she says as she approaches him at his locker in her torn jeans. He glances up at her while he's pulling the text books needed for studying out and placing them into his book bag, noting that her expression is pleasant despite their predicament. "You know, you really don't have to come over. I can study on my own."

He sighs. "It's not a matter of whether you can do it on your own or not." Truthfully - embarrassingly - he is too curious about her. She sticks close to her friend, Yui Inami, and rarely speaks to anyone who isn't Mitsuki or Ai. Though, spending nine hours a day in a room with her has exposed him to the things that she doesn't show or tell people. The sad curve of her eyes when no one is watching. The lonely slope of her shoulders.

Kuriyama shoves her hands in her pockets and glances down to the tiled floor. "Fine." He thinks fleetingly that she has a really cute nose, and that glasses look wonderful on her, but the last time he asked her to wear a pair of his, she broke them.

"You wanna grab something to eat before we head on over to your place?" He doesn't look at her as he asks; if he does that, he'll blush. Akihito doesn't exactly have much experience with girls he's curious about - something about Kuriyama makes her hard to label as his friend and he doesn't know why.

She snorts at him. "Like I wanna be seen in public with a nerd like you." Her voice is only half teasing which would have done a number on his ego if he wasn't such an easy going guy. The jab rolls off his shoulders. "I gotta run an errand anyway. I'll be home by five."

He shoulders his backpack and closes his locker, spinning the lock and side-eyeing her. "Alright. I'll be at your doorstep at five, then."

"Don't be late," she insists, driving her fist into his shoulder lightly for good measure. He winks back at her in response, which only urges her to roll her eyes. "Loser."

"Dummy," he retaliates. It's only when she's rounded the corner and left the school building that he realizes he doesn't know what she needs to study. "I'm the dummy," he mutters to himself. Kuriyama's friends , the Inamis', would have already gone home since Akihito knows that they don't participate in any clubs. The only other person still at school who knows Kuriyama's academic standing would be Mitsuki.

With a groan, he turns on his heel and head back to the clubroom, where, thankfully, Mitsuki Nase sits with an open pack of Twizzlers and a book he was lending out to her. She must hear him when he trudges into the room, though she doesn't look up, and instead tucks a lock of her ebony hair back behind one ear.

"Did you forget something? Or have you finally realized you can't go another minute without confessing your love for me?" She keeps her carmine eyes down, though there is a smirk in her voice.

Akihito rolls his eyes and leans against the door frame. "Always gotta get in the first punch, huh? Geez."

"You're unsurprisingly punch-able," she tells him.

"Right," he mutters, thinking about the way Kuriyama punches him in the shoulder before walking away. "Anyway, do you know what Kuriyama needs to study most?"

At that, Mitsuki does look up. "Why?"

"We have a study date," he says.

"A date?"

He rolls his eyes, but the tips of his ears turn red and he feels slightly flustered. Out of all the words he could have chosen to describe his plans with Kuriyama, he chooses 'date'? "Y-You know what I mean. We're together. No, that's, uh, I meant that she's my partner. For the exams!" He grits his teeth at his own stupidity and takes a deep breath in through the nose. "Are you going to tell me what she needs to study or not?"

"How do I know you're not going to force yourself at her? She's too cute to be left alone with the likes of you." She's clearly having too much fun with this. He resists the urge to storm away and do his own research to locate Kuriyama's home, but that's too much work for the hour and a half he has until he's supposed to meet her.

So, he narrows his eyes at her and shoves his hands casually into his pockets. "She'd kick my ass before I got within a five foot radius of her. Please, Mitsuki."

Clearly withholding a laugh, she relates Kuriyama's worst school subjects and tells him to behave as he turns to walk out the door. His face feels hot on the walk back to his apartment, which is small and quiet. He spends the next hour prepping note cards and reading through corrected assignments on his couch, and mentally slaps himself for forgetting to eat dinner before slipping into his jacket, grabbing his book bag, and locking his apartment door behind him.

She only lives a few blocks down from his side of town, so he's knocking on her door at exactly five, smirking to himself because he's so punctual she'll be biting the inside of her cheek to keep from making some sort of smart ass remark. He's so used to seeing Kuriyama in her school clothes that when the door opens and she's standing there in a white sleeveless shirt coupled with a pair of yoga pants, his eyes widen. However, what shocks him into silence is the fact that she's unpinned her bangs, and they now brush over the tops of a pair of red spectacles.

"Right on time," she says smartly, as he knew she would.

"You're wearing your glasses." He tries not to gape at her, feeling something in him thrill when her cheeks suddenly turn red and she glances away from him, scowling.

"You really gotta work on your greetings, Kanbara." She steps back and opens the door wider, still not meeting his gaze. "We're not going to be studying on the porch all night."

He blinks at her and then enters the apartment, unable to peel his eyes from her. Akihito has always thought there was something remarkably pretty about Kuriyama, but he's got a thing for glasses, and the fact that she owns a pair makes him painfully aware of her beauty. His heart skips a little in his chest, his face growing hot.

"Stop staring, pervert," she mutters. "This is why I don't wear them to school."

He shakes his head. "You look really, really good in glasses, Kuriyama. Really good."

She snorts. "You're saying that because you've got a glasses fetish."

"No," he insists, dropping his back to the floor and sliding out of his jacket. "I'm saying that because you are pretty."

"Kanbara, you can't just say things like that."

"I can. And I will. I've always thought you were pretty." He doesn't mean to say it - after all, he's pretty sure that Kuriyama can get any guy in school that she wants. He's not necessarily a last choice, but he doesn't consider himself the cream of the crop, either. She shouldn't know that he's. . ._curious_, about her, but telling her that he thinks she's pretty definitely makes him look guilty in that area.

She grabs his bag off the floor and averts her eyes, though he catches that her face is red as a stop sign. "Thanks."

He grimaces at his own inability to hold his tongue and begins to follow her as she leads the way to her couch, where her notes and books are already scattered across a coffee table. Peeking out from the backline of her tank top, just to the left of her shoulder blade, he sees something inked into her skin and feels his head whirl in astonishment.

"You have a tattoo?" he asks aloud.

She slings his backpack onto the couch and spins around to face him. The shock on her face is entirely new to him and he feels himself being more drawn to her. "How did you know?"

"I can see it," he replies, raising an eyebrow at her.

Though he knows she only means to try and cover it up, she looks ridiculously adorable as she cranes her neck over her shoulder and scrabbles to pull up the hem of the tank. "You weren't supposed to see that," she murmurs and it's the most flustered he's ever seen her.

"But I did," he answers stubbornly, taking a seat on the couch. "What's it of?" It must be important, he thinks, if she has it as a sixteen year old high school student. Not just any parent would let their kid get a tattoo so young.

The tenderness in his voice must be what coaxes it out of her, because she really doesn't put up that much of a fight. "It's nothing, really," she replies, sitting down beside him, too close for him to focus, admittedly. She smells like vanilla, he thinks dazedly. "I-It's just something for my parents. I lost them at a young age, so it's a kind of memorial. I guess."

He doesn't mean to ask, but she's beautiful in glasses and the blush is on her face so he does. "Can I see it?"

She looks up and holds his gaze. "We're supposed to be studying."

The math equations and chemistry questions really pale in comparison to how important she feels. What he really wants to be studying is her. "It'll take five seconds," he drawls, expecting her to shoot him down.

But she turns her back and pulls down the line of her tank, exposing the tattoo along with her bra strap. He swallows thickly as his eyes wander over the curve of her neck to the gentle line of her shoulder and down to the dent in her back where her shoulder blade protrudes. Nestled there is the inked image of a string of forget-me-nots, with a white flower he'd never seen before.

"I don't remember too much," she says softly. "I can barely remember their faces. But we grew the white carnations in my mother's garden."

He tries not to be insensitive. "What happened to your parents?" His fingers glide over the ink and he relaxes when she doesn't flinch away from him, or turn around and punch him.

"Car accident." She trembles ever so slightly under his touch and he can't believe that she is letting him get so close to her. Without warning, she straightens away from him and tugs the tank top back into place, fully covering the tattoo. He stares at her when she lifts her sundrop eyes to his face. "You brought all your notes, right?"

"Y-Yeah," he murmurs. Why does she never wear her glasses? Why does she never wear her hair down like this? She's always pretty, but this. . .this vulnerability, this gentle side of her is. . .making his heart ache terribly.

"Great," she replies, allowing herself a smile. He rarely gets smiles like that out of her "Let's get started then."

She sits too close to him. He can smell her vanilla lotion and the clean, flowery scent of her shampoo. It's frustrating and comforting that she is oblivious to how crazy he's going. He wants to put his hand against her skin again. Bury his nose in her hair. Her mouth is looking particularly enticing; supple and full. She reads through his notes and quizzes him on questions with her glasses slung low on her nose and her hair tucked adorably behind one ear.

On one hand, he's thrilled that he'll have over a week to spend the nights like this, with her, even if it is just for studying purposes. But on the other hand, he's that nerd loser she's always teasing and she's the cool, untouchable girl everyone wants to know. He shouldn't be staring at her mouth when she answers his questions.

After an hour of thorough studying (with only a few awkward pauses due to. . .distractions), Akihito puts down the notes when he hears Kuriyama's stomach growl. He raises an eyebrow and leans back into the sofa, though he feels his own belly grumbling with hunger.

"Didn't you have dinner?" he asks her.

"N-no, I was busy running my errand," she snarks back at him, pushing her glasses up her nose in a way that makes his heart sing.

"Then. . .got anything to eat?"

"Nothing instant," she mutters.

It's only just around six, so he sighs as he begins to loosen his tie and roll up the sleeves of his button down shirt. She blinks at him in surprise before scowling. "What are you doing?"

He undoes the first few buttons at his neck and smiles at her. "Let's cook something, then. You're hungry, and studying is useless on an empty stomach."

Unexpectedly, her gaze grows hot on his face and her cheeks redden. He glances away in embarrassment. "I can't cook," she says.

"That's fine," he tells her. God damn his heart for racing like this. "I can."

She leads him to her tiny little kitchen and he insists that if she doesn't know how to cook, she'll just get in the way, so he sends her to sit on one of the stools on the other side of the counter. They are mostly silent as he scrounges for the food in her fridge and pantry, thankful that she has enough ingredients to make something decent with, which ends up being a casserole with pork.

He grins at her in satisfaction as he sets the timer and turns to face her.

"I didn't know you could cook," she says, but her eyes are oddly focused somewhere below his face. Is she staring at his neck?

"Well, I didn't know you wore glasses or had a tattoo," he tells her with a sudden smile, leaning over the counter on his forearms. She's not very far away from him, he thinks, just over a foot between his face and hers. "What did you have to do today that was so important you forgot to eat?"

Her eyes dart towards the window of her living room, which they can see from her kitchen, before glancing back to him. He peruses the room with his own gaze, trying to figure out what that uncertain look meant before he feels his shoulders shaking in mirth at the utter insanity of it all.

"Are those. . .bonsai?" he asks, glancing back to her.

She fiddles on the stool, glaring at the counter top. "I was out picking one up earlier," she mutters in resignation. "I've been saving up for weeks."

He laughs full on now. There are a lot of things he expects from Kuriyama, but the things he's learned tonight are not any of them whatsoever. Her eyebrows draw in sharply at his amusement and he's worried about what thoughts she's having, but he can't bring himself to stop.

"It's not funny," she snaps.

"You're adorable," he tells her through his chuckling, his eyes sparkling. "You're so punk and cool and aloof at school and you tend to _bonsai_. Bravo for shattering, like, ten different stereotypes." This girl is full of surprises and he is so entirely entranced by it that he doesn't even bother to hide his curiosity about her, not at this point.

She blinks at him and then looks away nervously. "Why are you saying things like that tonight?"

He's confused. "Things like what?"

"You called me pretty. And adorable. A nerd like you isn't supposed to say things like that. Aren't you supposed to be shy and strange around a girl?"

"I'm not your typical nerd." He grins, though his cheeks are warming up. "I have a habit of saying what I think. Besides like you have any room to talk. _Bespectacled_ beauty. "

She glares at him. "Stop that. And button up your shirt."

"What?" He's suddenly bewildered. He only undid the first two buttons - it's not like he was walking around here shirtless.

Her eyes turn hot again and he's locked in her gaze. "You're an idiot," she says harshly and then she's leaning over the counter and pressing her mouth against his. At first he doesn't respond because his brain is still catching up with him and he can feel her nervousness in her lips as she begins to pull away. But then he realizes that this is Mirai Kuriyama and she is kissing him and he chases her mouth with eager lips, twisting his hand into the wave of her hair as he retaliates.

She makes a sound of surprise in the back of her throat but then her hands are desperately tearing away at his tie.

"I am so sick of waiting on you," she mutters against his mouth as she tugs him around to her side of the counter, gripping the two sides of his tie tightly in her hands. "You're oblivious and it's unpleasant."

"Oblivous?" he whispers against the corner of her mouth as her hands press against his chest. "How was I supposed to know? You pick on me!"

"Because I wanted you to know I exist," she insists with frustration as she opens her legs and pulls him by the collar to her. He's not an experienced kisser, but neither is she, really, so their mouths are clumsy, driven only by the terribly overwhelming need to convey their feelings without saying anything at all.

"Then you are the oblivious one," he says before kissing her hard, skewing her glasses awkwardly across her face. She runs her fingers up into the golden locks of his hair, tugging them, stroking them, sighing against his mouth in such a girlish, endearing way that his heart leaps painfully. He pulls away from her and presses his forehead against hers, watching with a swelling chest as her eyes slide shut and she blushes under her crooked spectacles.

"Mirai," he murmurs.

She tightens her fingers in his hair, her chest flattened against his. "Akihito."

The next day at school, Akihito spends the day hiding his smirk as Kuriyama walks through the door in ripped tights and her red glasses, hair pinned back, leather jacket fitted snugly to her petite frame, earning several compliments and whispers from all her admirers in their class.

"Kuriyama," Akihito yells across the room, winking at her, "You look wonderful in glasses!"

She calls him a pervert, and its only by rolling her eyes that she's able to keep the smile from spreading across her face.


End file.
